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The Bridges of Aue (Saxony), Germany

Sometimes experiments are needed in order to find out how to effectively reach your audience. It can be with the use of print media, such as newspaper articles, leaflets, broschures and the like. But it can also mean the use of various forms of technology, such as the internet and social networking. Aside from wordpress, which powers the Chronicles both as an original as well as the areavoices version, people have used facebook and pininterest to post their pics of their favorite bridges. Yet most of these have been individual bridges and not that of a tour guide, like the Chronicles has been posting since its launch in 2010.

The Bridgehunter’s Chronicles has just started using Instagram recently, and I had a chance to experiment with putting a tour guide together, using the app , during my most recent visit to the city of Aue in western Saxony.

Located 25 kilometers southeast of Zwickau where the Zwickauer Mulde and Schwarzwasser (Black Water) Rivers meet, Aue is lined up along both rivers with houses that are at least a century old. The town prides itself on mining and therefore, one can find many places where copper, silver, iron and uranium are produced and transported, both past and present. It also has a top premere soccer team in Erzgebirge Aue, which plays in the second tier of the German Bundesliga. Eight kilometers to the west is the town of Schneeberg, where several Medieval buildings have been considered historically significant by the government and UNESCO, including its prized cathedral. However getting there is almost only possible by bus or car, for biking up there would be as biblically challenging as Moses climbing up Mt. Sinai to speak to God and get the Ten Commandments.

Speaking from experience, if you have to go to Schneeberg from Aue, please don’t do that and take the bus instead. 😉

Getting back to the story, I happened to take some downtime between the time of an appointment in Schneeberg and the time I had to return to Jena. The only problem was the camera that I usually use for my bridgehunting tour was left home by accident. Bummer as it was and seeing many sights considering surprising to the eye of the photographer and pontist, I decided to use Instagram on my Smartphone and started taking pictures.

Despite the firsthand attempt of using Instagram to construct a tour guide of the historic bridges in the community of 55,000 inhabitants, it did not stop right there. Over the course of almost six months- most of which was concentrated in the second half of the time when I started working as a teacher at the police academy nearby- I found some valuable information and together with what I used with Instagram, I enhanced my tour guide in a way where I integrated my photos and information into Google Map, so that in the end, this tour guide is the first in which Google Map is used exclusively.

So how does this work? Rather simple.

Go to the map at the end of the article, zoom in and click onto the bridge you wish to look at. Enjoy the pics and the information provided per bridge. 🙂 The goal with this tour guide is to make it simpler for people to access the bridge without reading too much text. The Aue Bridge Guide will set the precedent for further tour guides to be created in the future, while at the same time, experiment with newer social network apps with the goal of attracting more viewers than up to now.

It is hoped that the two attempts will be a success and the Chrnonicles will therefore become a bigger platform for discussing historic bridges.

In the meantime, enjoy the tour guide as well as the pics via Instagram. 😀

4 thoughts on “The Bridges of Aue (Saxony), Germany”

In connection with a recent interview with a local newspaper about the bridges in the Erzgebirge, this tourguide has been updated to include information and bridge photos, most of which can be found via Google Map. The text has been updated as well. As mentioned here, the tour guide is the first of many parts on the bridges in the mountain region in western Saxony, yet it is also the first of its kind to use new apps other than what has been profiled in article form to date. This includes Google Map where you can click onto the bridge and view the photos taken. In any case, enjoy the new version of the tour guide on Aue’s historic bridges.